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Online marketing is the perfect approach to meet the dynamic marketing needs that all business have encountered in this new era. Towing companies have a lot of things to take into account when it comes to staying relevant in the pay-per-click world. Are you planning to serve only within a mile radius? Are you offering additional services or just towing? Have you considered taking your business to the next level by advertising for long-distance towing?

Whatever it is that you want to focus on, you will find that PPC is the right approach. While you may be tempted to dive right into a campaign, there are several things you need to consider. When building your campaign, think about things like excluding terms that will trigger any type of insurance, having the right call to action in place, picking the account type that will do wonders for you, and so on.

So, if you are planning on building a PPC campaign for your towing business, here are the keys to success:

1. Choose the Right Campaign Type

Before you get started on building your campaign, you need to make sure you know what type of campaign set up you want to aim for. Here are some tips on how to identify which would be the best campaign type based on your budget and business model.

• Display Campaign

This is the perfect fit for new businesses that want to make sure their brand is recognized. Display campaigns will help with brand awareness at a low cost. Branding your name will create consumer engagement through different ad types, like banner ads, text ads, rich media ads, and more.  

Keep in mind that Google states that this campaign type reaches 90% of the internet users across global searches. Reaching them through two million sites, including websites and apps. That means that you can constantly remind searchers of your services and name through this network.

• Search Campaign

Search campaigns are ideal if you only take care of business during specific times of the day, and all week or certain weekdays. For example, this works if your business works from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., attends local calls and is open Monday through Friday.

This campaign type is not limited to a specific time frame or specific days either. It will also be good for businesses that have an appointment setup or form on their site, or if you don’t have the availability to answer calls all day, every day. If you do have the option of answering calls and want to be able to keep the cost-per-click under control, search campaigns are also the perfect fit for you.

• Call-Only Campaign

Lastly, we have the perfect campaign for business on the go or that provide emergency services to clients. If you use keywords like “24/7 roadside assistance,” “emergency towing services,” or “towing services near me,” this is the way to go.

While search campaigns will be able to have terms like this as well, you have to keep in mind that the users looking for this type of keywords need someone that can get to them as soon as possible. Therefore, they will look for your services on their phones and will hire based on the time it will take you to get to them and proximity to their location.

A combination of two campaigns is also possible, as long as you have the appropriate budget for both campaigns to run. If you do have two campaigns running with a limited budget, you could get skewed data and potentially increase the cost-per-acquisition for your campaign.

2. Google My Business Page

Due to the nature of the business, having up-to-date information available is always a plus. As previously mentioned, you want to make sure your potential clients know how close they are to your business, since it can be a make-or-break point for their decision. Google My Business not only allows you to showcase your location, it also posts reviews from previous clients. This will help since social proof makes a huge impact on a customer’s final decision. If everyone says your service is good then it must be good, and vice versa – if everyone says it’s bad then it must be bad.

Be careful when it comes to linking your Google My Business page to your online marketing efforts. If you just plan to create and not maintain your Google My Business pages, then linking to your campaigns may not be the best solution. You need to commit to keeping your page up to date, share promotions or pictures of recent jobs, or interact with your customers. Answer reviews you get from the clients, especially the bad ones since this will showcase to the potential clients that you are willing to learn from your mistakes and work things out.

Another thing you have to take into account is keeping your business hours up to date. For example, if there is a holiday coming up and you don’t intend to open your business, make sure you update this information on your account, as well. That way you won’t be getting calls from people and have to pass on a job because you do not have the resources.

Pro Tip: Make sure that your business NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number) is accurate, to avoid any dissatisfaction or misunderstanding. And make sure you check the information you have on your GMB insights report so you can get a better understanding on how are they finding your page, actions they take on Google my Business, direction requests, and more.

3.    Keyword Selection

Even though having the right campaign approach based on your campaign’s goal is important, you cannot forget about doing the right keyword selection for your account and knowing what is going to be the main focus for your business. It would be like having a sports car in your garage and no gas. In theory, the car would be able to take you from point A to point B, but you don’t have what it takes to make it move. So, you would have to be calling a towing service (agency) to take you to the fuel you need to move the car.

Here are some tips on how to build your keyword selection the right way:

• Use Keyword Planner

Keyword Planner will help you select the right type of keyword for your area, by giving you a cost estimate per click and an average of monthly searches that the keyword will generate in your area.

You can get ideas from your website, phrases, and keywords related to your industry. This gives you a general idea of how to segment your campaign into relevant ad groups and make sure you will be creating an account that will drive traffic to your site.

• Use Words that Create a Sense of Urgency

This is mainly for users looking for roadside assistance, whether their car has broken down, they have a flat tire, run out of gas, or more. These users will be looking for someone that can make it to them in a jiffy. Put yourself in their shoes – the last thing you want is to be waiting on the side of the road for hours.

Keeping this in mind, think about how would you look for these services. Would you call it an emergency towing? If it’s late, you would not only look for a towing service, but for a 24/7 emergency towing service. The keywords can be as specific and long-tail as you want, but you also need to remember that the longer the keyword, the more chances you have that it will have a low search volume. While you can go crazy with the keyword selection and add as many keywords as you want, don’t lose sight of your campaign goal. Remember that you have to be able to generate an adequate amount of traffic according to your budget. The more specific a keyword does not necessarily lead to more traffic or conversions, because you will be limiting your audience a bit too much.

• Use Locations for Your keywords

Due to the nature of the business, when creating a local lead generation campaign, you must include variations that factor in location. This means including specific zip codes, cities, “near me,” or “nearby” variations. For example, if you service the Miami area, you will have keyword variations such as:

• +emergency+towing+miami
• +miami+fl+emergency+towing
• +emergency+towing+near+me
• +emergency+towing+33166

Each one of these keywords could target a different type of user, though they are all aiming for people looking for emergency towing service. The local intent or proximity is defined by the words that come before or after the core service. Someone looking for emergency towing service in the 33166 zip code is looking for someone near Medley area, while someone looking for emergency towing services in Miami is just browsing for someone that is in their city, no matter how long they might take.

• Stay Away from DIY Keywords

Now that we covered the basics for the keyword selection, there is one more thing you need to keep in mind. When building your keyword list, you need to stay away from do-it-yourself (DIY) search terms, like “how to change a tire,” “change a tire tutorial,” “how to change a flat tire,” etc. When building your list, consider the type of users you want to reach and the ones you want to stay away from. This will help you to create your campaign the proper way and help you when building your negative keyword list.

4. Negative Keyword List

There are thousands of sites that can give you a general idea on how to build your negative keyword list, but nobody knows the industry better than you do. In the same way, you have taken the time to look for variations that are relevant for your industry, you also have to think of search queries that could be driven from your keywords to your campaign that generate costs, but no actual interest to your site.

My personal favorite site for negative keyword building is Negative Keyword Pro. This solution allows you to select from a list that populates from a search term or keywords you enter in the search bar, and it also gives you options to choose from based on different search engines like Google, Amazon, and Youtube. Also, if you are building campaigns in multiple languages, it allows you to select them from a drop-down menu, as well.

5.    Account Ad Copy

Ad copy is also important when building a local campaign. This is the first thing searchers see before they decide to either call you or visit your site. So, if your ad copy does not talk to your potential users, you will end up with a lot of impressions and no clicks. First impressions do matter and in this case, just remember that your website is not the first thing searchers see. No matter how well designed your site is or how much content you have added, your ad copy must be up to par.

Make sure you consider these things when creating your ads:

•         Reliability

References to a testimonials page, phrases like on “time every time,” information about how many customers you have served, or even how many have left a good review give you a great amount reliability. People trust what others have to say; it’s as simple as that. Just make sure that you have something on the site that can help you prove what you claim in your ad copy.

•        Create Urgency

Creating urgency is ideal for accounts that have weekly promos or special deals that set them apart from the competitors. By creating a sense of urgency, you give the potential customer a fear of missing out on your promotions, like if it is a one-time offer that they either take or lose. Also, this will increase the possible clicks you can generate on the account, compared to ad copy that does not have any urgency. For an example, you can use countdown on promotions you have for the week or a special discount for the next service booking.

•        How Quickly You can Provide Service

Local business can take advantage of providing time estimates to clients through their ad copy. If you know that you only cover a 15-mile radius and it takes about 20 minutes to get anywhere within your target location, I highly recommend you highlight it in your ad copy. For example, include information like “We are 20 minutes away,” and if you get there earlier, you will exceed your clients’ expectations that were set through the ad.

•        Assurance

This can be provided by highlighting any type of awards and recognition you have received over the years, or certification or insurance you have acquired for your business. Showcase these attributes through extensions or your ad copy, depending on how many awards you have and which ones you think would have the greatest impact. Prioritize the ones that were provided locally, especially if they are well known.

•        Emergency and 24/7

Highlight 24/7 services if available. This is a competitive advantage over businesses that only have the manpower to operate during business hours. “Emergency services,” or a combination of “emergency and 24/7 services”, is acceptable for the ad copy.

•        If functions

If functions are used to target clients with different messages on the same ad. For example, you can have an ad that reads “we are one call away” whenever the user is looking on their mobile device, versus a “get a free quote online” if they are looking on their tablets or desktops.

•        Specify the Type of Service Available

Lastly, make sure you specify on the ad copy even if it is included on the website. Letting your clients know that you can provide local towing services, roadside assistance, or long distance towing service will help you identify two things: your company’s bread and butter through online marketing and how to allot your budget effectively.

PPC is the right choice to get an effective return on investment for your towing business. Make sure you follow the steps we covered above, and you will create the right account for you and your business. Do not let your competitors get ahead of you. Towing services is a growing market, and if you snooze you lose. If you wait to jump on the PPC wagon, it may be a little too late.